


a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

by basementhero



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-06-06 10:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6749773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basementhero/pseuds/basementhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The galaxy is heading towards war. The REBELLION lies in wait for an opportunity to strike against the GALACTIC EMPIRE.</p>
<p>A Rebel spy has managed to obtain the plans for the Empire's most formidable weapon. The Rebellion is poised to attack.</p>
<p>Little do they know that their best chance at restoring order to the galaxy may come from outside their ranks...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That's no moon. It's a space station.

**Author's Note:**

> this story uses official Star Wars canon with a lot of "Legends" material where necessary

Liam’s earliest memories are of the small apartment on Coruscant in which he lived with his parents and sisters for the first decade or so of his life. His clearest memories, however—the ones he can picture vividly, as if he were there reliving them—are of his years at the Academies on Lothal, after his father had signed him up and shipped him off without letting Liam’s mother say a word in protest.

“He’ll train to serve the Empire,” Liam’s father had said proudly. “Our boy, protecting the galaxy.”

Karen Payne still hadn’t been too keen on the idea. Sending her son off for military training before he was finished growing up—before _she_ was finished protecting _him_ —had seemed like a terrible idea. She had never been good at talking her husband out of his whims once he’d set his mind to them, though, so off Liam went to Lothal whether she liked it or not.

At the junior Academy, Liam learned how to shoot first and ask questions later, although he wasn’t very good at it at first. He can recall numerous reprimands from the officers about everything from walking a step off-beat to hesitating to follow orders. His biggest punishment came after an AT-ST piloting accident in which he nearly had the thing step on his instructor and, in trying to swerve out of the way, managed to knock over one of the many statues of the Emperor that had been built all over the grounds. Liam had had his rations severely cut for two weeks and been assigned to the sanitation team for four months.

The real trouble with Liam’s training wasn’t his struggles with the AT-ST controls. No, the problem was that he had too much of a conscience. He had no trouble understanding and remembering orders, but he never seemed to be able to carry them out without pausing to question the morality of the task at hand. He was too unwaveringly good, too sure of the divide between right and wrong to shoot whomever he was ordered to target, always wanting to know _why_ the target was under blaster fire and whether it might be preferable to use nonviolent methods better suited to apprehending the target alive. With dummies, his aim was good, if not better than his peers, but on low-level training missions with real targets, he rarely if ever shot a single blaster bolt.

“He has potential,” the Taskmaster would write in the reports back to his family, “but will never succeed if he does not learn to follow orders.”

Liam hadn’t cared much about doing well at the Academy, but he refused to be a disappointment to his parents. After just barely graduating from the junior academy up to the senior, Liam resolved to bury his questioning and do whatever was ordered of him. He bit back all his doubts and fired wherever they pointed—faked the certainty and emotionless obedience of his peers until he fooled everyone, even himself on occasion. He rose to the top of the class and graduated into and out of the Stormtrooper Corps without ever hesitating again.

Assignment to the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station came as a surprise, but was an honor that Liam accepted immediately—not that he’d had much choice in the matter. As the much smaller starship had approached the space station, Liam and the other ‘troopers had resolutely not stared out the windows in awe. The Death Star, as it was more colloquially known, loomed menacingly against a backdrop of stars, entirely a dark gray with a large indent in the upper half that reportedly was the site of the station’s most formidable weapon: a superlaser with the power to destroy an entire planet in one shot. Liam’s historically shaky loyalty to Imperial war strategy fractured like never before, although outwardly he had given no signs of his inner turmoil. The white plastoid armor was endlessly helpful in that regard, ever-required mask hiding his face from giving away his qualms. He had almost reconciled himself to the authorization to shoot innocent civilians if they acted suspicious or got in his way, but eliminating an entire planet was so many magnitudes worse. Nevertheless, he had calmly walked off the transport shuttle and received his orders despite his misgivings.

Liam hadn’t been stationed on the Death Star long before they caught her: a rebel pilot who failed to keep her X-wing fighter far enough away from the tractor beams. He hadn’t been anywhere near the docking bay she was pulled into, but he heard the story later from a bunch of ‘troopers gossiping during their shift after the fact. Apparently she was fairly compact but stronger than she’d looked; several Stormtroopers had to drag her out of her ship and restrain her flailing limbs, which took out two ‘troopers before someone had finally knocked her over the head with the bottom of a blaster rifle. Liam did see her in person not long after that, as his post was in the detention block. She was thrown over the shoulder of a Stormtrooper, with a thin but steady drip of blood from the wound on her head trailing across the floor.

In the four days since her capture, Liam has heard far too much and the Grand Moff far too little of her voice. They keep asking her where the rebel base is; unfortunately—for them and for her—she is nothing if not resilient and constantly refuses to give in. Liam admires her resolve, truly, but he can’t help but feel that there is a time and a place for stubbornness and being trapped deep within enemy territory is not it. The rebels have always seemed a bit daft to him, really: trying to stand against the Empire with a handful of pilots and half-formed plans. It’s unbelievably foolish to expect to win when their support numbers nowhere near even a quarter of the Imperial military. When the prisoner inevitably gives up the location of their base, no doubt the planet will soon find itself faced with the Death Star’s superlaser, soundly defeated before anyone has a chance to flee. The captured rebel will meet her demise too, and perhaps it will be more merciful than the situation she finds herself in until she gives up the information.

_Better her than me,_ Liam tries to repeat to himself as interrogation probes come in and out of her cell.

_She must have known she wouldn’t succeed,_ he tries to reason when he hears muffled shouts and curses down the corridor.

_She brought this on herself,_ he tries to believe when he hears that the Grand Moff has sent for the Emperor’s Hand to drag the information out of the prisoner, seeing as she isn’t giving in for the droids.

“She’ll give in, all right,” Liam overhears an ensign sneer over his drink in the commissary. “I don’t believe in that sorcery shite, but whatever the Darth does, it works.”

He’s not wrong. The “sorcery” in question is the Force, a power invoked by few to none after the corruption and subsequent fall of the Jedi nineteen years ago, before the Emperor took over the shattered Republic and reordered the galaxy. The Emperor’s right hand man, Darth Solus, is the only person to still publicly make claims to the Force and an ability to wield it, and he is both mocked and feared for it. Regardless of the dubious view of the Force, everyone knows of Darth Solus’ particular brand of success when it came to acquiring information. If he’s coming to interrogate the prisoner, she’s going to give up the answers she’s been holding back, no matter how desperately she tries to fight him.

The day before the Emperor’s favorite lackey is scheduled to arrive, Liam volunteers to take the prisoner her daily water ration—a necessity they provide because she’s no use to them dead. Her cell is fairly isolated from the others in the block and from the central overview station where Liam and the other ‘troopers stand guard. The seclusion doesn’t have an obvious logical reason, as far as Liam is concerned, unless the Captain who ordered it was trying to keep her far away from the daily sounds of people moving about the detention block; regardless, it’s a convenience that does nothing to stop the dangerous thought growing in Liam’s mind with every step he takes away from prying eyes. By the time he gets to the cell door, Liam is convinced that he’s lost his mind…but not so convinced as to change it.

The door _whooshes_ open at Liam’s code. The interior of the cell contains only a hard metal slab protruding from the far wall, which is where the prisoner lays on her back. She props her torso up on one elbow and turns to face the Stormtrooper with a harsh glare. It’s obvious to Liam that she’s weary and in pain despite how determined she is not to let it show.

“Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?” she jeers.

Liam raises an eyebrow, but she cannot see it due to his helmet. The interrogations have clearly affected her eyesight or at least her ability to come up with cutting insults, because Liam is average if not a bit on the tall side compared to the majority of his fellow ‘troopers. He decides not to call her out on her mistake and steps far enough inside the cell for the door to close behind him before he reaches up to pull off his helmet.

“I’m Liam Payne,” he informs her before logic can return to him and stop him from pursuing this suicidal plan. “I’m here to rescue you.”

She stares at him, dumbfounded. “…What?”

“We don’t have much time,” he presses on. “The guards change shifts soon and we should have just enough time to escape before the next shift notices something’s happened.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re a Stormtrooper.”

Liam holds out the water he brought, pushing it towards her and waiting for her to take the hint and drink it. “Yes, but…I won’t stand for the kind of torture they’ve asked Darth Solus here for.”

“Oh, so regular torture is alright?” she sasses, taking the water.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says firmly. He only gets a shrug in return.

“They’re going to kill you,” the prisoner says casually between gulps of water. “This is treason.”

“Not if we get out of here first.”

She seems to think about it for a moment. Liam chooses not to comment on how much her arm has begun to shake supporting her weight; it won’t do to anger her by pointing out weakness if he wants to convince her to trust him.

“My droid,” she eventually says, “I can’t leave without her.”

“We don’t have time. It’s probably already destroyed.”

“Look,” she pushes herself up until she’s sitting straight, carefully wrapping a protective arm around her torso but managing to look fierce anyway. “I’m not leaving without Jay. My whole mission will have been a waste, and I didn’t go through several rounds of interrogation probes just to go back empty handed.”

“If we waste time looking for your droid, you won’t be going back at all.”

They stare each other down, neither wanting to concede. Liam is absolutely certain that they’ll lose their window of opportunity if they detour to go after an astromech that probably isn’t even around anymore. The rebel, on the other hand, is stubborn and set on her mission, even, apparently, at the expense of her only chance to escape. Liam considers for a moment that he doesn’t _have_ to help her at all; he could sneak down to the nearest docking bay and commandeer a ship and probably make it off the space station before anyone notices he’s gone. Taking a prisoner with him, especially the most high-profile prisoner on the station, will only set off the alarm and put the entire Death Star on the search for them. The dried blood crusted on her temple, however, brings him back out of his daydream and sharply back into reality, and the reality is that Liam is not the kind of person that would leave anyone behind to suffer by the Emperor’s Hand. He would never be able to forgive himself.

“All right. We’ll try to get the droid,” he agrees stiffly, pulling his helmet back on. “I’ll come back to collect you as soon as the shift change begins.”

Liam does just that, waiting until the other guards are just out of the door before he backtracks to the rebel’s cell. They have about three minutes to get out before the next shift comes in, three minutes that have always been a glaring security problem but that have never been eliminated because the Imperial military is far too arrogant to worry that anyone in their detention block will be able to escape. Liam isn’t confident that he’ll be able to prove them wrong.

The prisoner is on her feet when the door opens.

“Let’s go,” he says immediately, taking her bicep gently but firmly. “We don’t have much time.”

They walk quickly through the detention block and out one of the smaller side entrances, ducking into the first access corridor they come to. The main hallways of the space station have near-constant ‘trooper presence, so Liam is going to have to weave them through the narrow access corridors meant for maintenance and droid travel. If they’re spotted—and he assumes they will be at least once—he hopes the prisoner’s face hasn’t been broadcasted to the entire Death Star yet; if she isn’t recognized, he can pretend to be escorting a more minor captive to an officer for sentencing.

Assuming that the droid wasn’t immediately used for parts or liquidated, it should be at the mechanic room closest to the docking bay she landed in. An officer may have wanted to make sure no useful information could be found on the droid before its destruction; it’s not a good chance, knowing what Liam does of the officers onboard, but it’s the only one they’ve got. They need to go down three levels to get to the mechanic. There are numerous lifts, Liam knows, but he doesn’t trust that they’ll be able to get one to themselves, and he doesn’t know how much time they have before someone realizes they’re missing a prisoner. There’s a maintenance ladder towards the center of the space station, so that’s where Liam guides the rebel, twisting through access corridors as quietly as they can.

They reach the ladder without being seen and without the alarms going off to tell the station to start looking for them. Liam looks down at the hole in the floor with trepidation, not for himself but for his companion. He can’t risk her losing her grip and falling to her death.

“Climb on my back,” Liam orders without much preamble.

“Huh?”

“You’re injured. You might fall.”

“I’m not an invalid,” she insists unhappily.

“Look-” Liam realizes that he doesn’t know her name. He never bothered to look it up. “What’s your name?”

She hesitates. He can appreciate being careful, even if he’s not sure how he feels about the chances of success for their escape if she can’t even trust him with her name. “Jesy.”

“Okay, Jesy. You’ve been under interrogation for days, and you need to save your strength for later, in case we need make a run for it. Climb on my back.”

She clearly doesn’t want to, but it’s time for her to give in a bit instead of him, so she wraps her arms around his neck from behind and hops on when he bends down.

“Don’t look down,” she jokes dryly when they begin their descent.

“Don’t let go.”

The echo of his boots on the ladder rungs is too loud to be comfortable with. The sound rings through the tiny shaft through which they climb down and probably makes it through the openings to different levels as well. Liam can’t make his feet any quieter, though, especially not with the added weight on his back. In the hope of minimizing the noise, he goes for speed over caution.

He steps off the ladder on the right floor and lets Jesy slide off his back, and then that’s when the alarm lights start flashing red and the air is filled with obnoxiously loud sirens. In the main corridors, he knows there must be broadcasts of the prisoner’s face and calls for her immediate recapture. Liam doesn’t state the obvious need for them to hurry, but he does tug just a bit harder on the woman’s arm as he pulls her towards the mechanic’s quarters.

“What kind of droid is it?” he asks over his shoulder as they take a sharp right, ducking around a maintenance droid that luckily doesn’t have time to recognize the rebel’s face.

“A J4 unit,” Jesy replies over their clanging footsteps, like that’s supposed to mean something to him.

“What?”

“I’ll know her when I see her!”

There’s no time to argue about it. Liam doesn’t know much about droids anyway. Had the alarms held off until after they’d made it in and out of the mechanics, he might have been able to walk in calmly and request the droid in question; the alarm _has_ gone off, however, so shooting their way to the astromech will have to be the plan.

Liam nearly runs into a protocol droid stepping out of a narrow doorway.

“That is prisoner-” the droid doesn’t finish their observation, taking a blaster bolt to the head. Liam shoves the metal body out of their way so that they can duck into the newly-vacated doorway.

They enter what looks to be a storeroom filled with metal bits in haphazardly-placed containers on the built-in shelves. Several detached droid limbs imply that they’ve reached the mechanic: Liam doesn’t let out a sigh of relief, but he does let the tension in his spine relax for a short moment. Then it’s back again and they move on, alert and ready to be shot at any moment.

“Jay!” Jesy whisper-exclaims as soon as they’re two steps in to an incinerator room.

A small droid tucked in a dark corner beep-beep-boops to life and rolls towards them with as much excitement as an astromech can probably convey. The droid just barely reaches waist high on Jesy; it essentially looks like a cylinder with a rounded head, suspended off the ground by two legs on the sides that lead to the “feet” and wheels of the droid. While most of the droid is a grayish-white, there is some detailing on the head and body in a dark blue-green. Seeing the droid in person reminds Liam of how irritated he is about this detour, although less so now than when it was initially demanded, since the astromech is at least still functional.

“Jay, this is Liam Payne,” Jesy explains, “the only Stormtrooper you are _not_ to shoot. Payne, this is J4-D3, the Rebellion’s best hope of stopping the Empire.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Liam and Jesy turn to face the intruder, an older man with a torque wrench in his right hand. His uniform is wrinkled and burnt in several places, and he glares at them from underneath large goggles.

“I’m taking this droid up to Captain Samuels for inspection,” Liam lies calmly, stepping subtly in front of Jesy and adjusting his grip on his blaster rifle.

“That droid is marked for incineration.”

“You’ll have to take that up with the Captain.”

The mechanic scowls darkly. He looks Liam up and down, taking in the defensive stance and expressionless helmet, before turning his gaze to the ‘trooper’s companion. He must recognize her face or at least the standard prison garments on her body: either way, the realization dawns clearly on his face.

The mechanic turns, presumably to sprint for his communicator to call for backup. Liam shoots and misses by a tiny margin, collapsing a shelf instead of hitting the target. The Stormtrooper chases after the other man, Jesy and her droid following just behind him, trying to get a clear shot again as they run into the true workshop, where there are droid bodies and parts scattered about the floors and hanging from the ceiling.

“—requesting backup. The prisoner is here, mechanics block A-19!”

Liam aims for the commlink and fires. The red blaster bolt hits and the mechanic reels back with a shriek, clutching his disfigured hand to his chest. The remains of the commlink fall to the floor with a light trail of smoke.

It’s too late: the distinctive clunking of Stormtrooper armor approaches loudly from outside the workshop. There’s only one exit Liam can clearly identify, and it’s the same one a horde of ‘troopers are about to storm through.

“Take cover!” He shouts at Jesy, motioning wildly at the various places behind which she could hide.

The ‘troopers have to come in single-file, eight or nine of them in total. They pause for a moment to inspect the scene: one of their comrades in fighting stance, the mechanic who alerted them groaning over a burnt hand, and the eyes of their target peering out at them from behind a half-built probe suspended from the ceiling. It takes them a few seconds to understand that the Stormtrooper before them isn’t aiming at the prisoner—a few precious seconds that Liam uses to his advantage, firing rapidly in a chaotic stream towards the doorway. The ‘troopers that aren’t taken out by his first wave begin to fire back, red blaster bolts ricocheting around the cluttered room. Liam dodges behind the mechanic’s desk, unfortunately not before he takes a shot to the arm that strikes just below the slightly-better protection of his armor. It burns through his black under armor and grazes his skin; the wound isn’t particularly deep, but it stings like hell, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek to keep from yelping. There is a surprised shout not long after from somewhere in the room, but with all of the blaster fire Liam can’t make out where it came from.

He continues to pick off the Stormtroopers as quickly as he can, for once grateful that their armor is nearly useless against a direct hit from a blaster bolt. They go down a bit too easily, if Liam’s honest; a rather pathetic commentary on Imperial military training. He knows more will be coming soon, though, and the ‘troopers have always derived their strength from sheer numbers rather than elite tactics or weapons usage. When the last one falls, Liam gets to his feet and goes to collect Jesy so they can make their way to the docking bay.

“Take your damn helmet off,” she demands angrily as soon as he nears her. “I don’t want to die looking at that ugly design.”

She’s slumped on the floor, back against the wall where she must have crawled during the scuffle. She has one hand on the side of her droid and the other weakly covering the hole in her left side that a stray blaster bolt must have left behind. It may not have hit anything vital, especially considering that she didn’t die immediately, but she and Liam both know that she won’t be able to walk—much less run and duck for cover at a moment’s notice—with a wound like that.

“You have to take Jay to the Rebel Alliance on Yavin Four,” she says as soon as the helmet is off, as requested.

“I won’t leave you behind.” It’s nearly a feeble platitude; Liam knows he’ll cave under her orders. He’s going to tell himself it’s entirely because she’s stubborn and he wants to help her, and not at all because he’s so close to freedom now and doesn’t know if he can stomach sitting here and waiting for someone to come find them and throw them both in a cell. He’d carry her the rest of the way if he could, but it’s just not feasible with the threat of Stormtrooper ambush around every corner.

“ _Go_ ,” Jesy insists, patting the droid once before dropping her hand to the floor.

“I broke you out because I didn’t want you to fall into Solus’ hands.”

“Then don’t let me.”

The rebel doesn’t react to his shock. She doesn’t clarify her statement or take it back, just looks resolutely back at her companion and waits for him to agree with her decision. It will be less painful for her to die here, he knows. He’d be saving her from certain torture. It makes sense, but that doesn’t make it any easier to raise his gun.

“You really don’t have the time to be a pansy about this.”

Her cold, unaffected tone just makes him feel worse.

“Just shoot me already!”

“Fine! Fine—I’m sorry.”

He shoots.


	2. Set your course for Alderaan.

There’s no time to move the rebel’s body to a more dignified resting place, nor does Liam know where he would have moved her if he could. He only has moments before the next wave of Stormtroopers will arrive. He puts his helmet back on and gets to his feet, blaster still at the ready no matter how heavy it suddenly feels.

“We have to get to a docking bay and steal a ship,” he says firmly, both to himself and the droid he’s now stuck with.

The droid beeps what he assumes is an agreement. Liam doesn’t understand Binary—he’s never had a reason to—so he resolves to take every sound the droid makes as an affirmative response.

He could leave J4-D3 behind, he knows: without Jesy, no one will complain about leaving the astromech on the Death Star. His escape would be far easier without having a droid trailing behind him, telling anyone who sees them that he’s not just a nameless ‘trooper going about menial tasks. The droid may not be an instant death sentence, but it will draw attention, and attention is the last thing Liam needs if he’s going to get off the space station as efficiently as possible.

One periphery glance towards the body on the floor and he knows he can’t leave the droid.

Liam looks down at his new astromech companion and sighs. If only its detailing were black or red so it would fit in more with the Empire’s droid models.

“Stick with me and…act Imperial, or something.”

The silence he gets in return seems irritated, but Liam could just be projecting.

They make it out of the mechanic’s and sufficiently far away from the entrance to be out of sight before the next round of Stormtroopers comes to check on why their comrades haven’t commed to report the successful recapturing of the prisoner. Liam holds his breath at every noise, resists throwing himself towards his fellow soldiers on his knees to plead guilty and hope for a quick death.

Liam realizes again how much of a problem J4-D3 is as he stares at the ladder that would take them down to the docking bay level if only the droid had arms and legs.

“We have to take the lift,” he mutters unhappily to himself with just a bit of an accusation towards the little hunk of metal beside him.

He tries to tell himself that it will be all right. He wants to believe that, for the first time since he’s been on the space station, the lift will be completely empty. He’s not really surprised when the universe isn’t kind to him.

The lieutenant commander is preoccupied with straightening his uniform when Liam and J4-D3 hesitantly slide into the lift beside the man. His hair is ruffled, and he’s missing a button on his uniform jacket. Liam imagines the man was probably in the middle of an illicit engagement with someone before the alarms went off thanks to Liam’s rapidly deteriorating plan. The officer has most likely been summoned to help deal with the issue, maybe to figure out just who exactly helped the prisoner to escape. And Liam, luckless idiot that he is, is trapped in a lift with a man who could sentence him to endless torture if he figures out what Liam’s done.

Liam strategically stands with his body angled to mostly hide the droid from view. He looks strange, turned part of the way towards the other lift occupant, but looking strange is better than looking guilty.

The officer sheepishly straightens out his posture and clears his throat, obviously aware of how disheveled he looks. “Where are you headed?” he asks.

“Docking bay, sir,” Liam reports in his most serious voice.

“Shouldn’t you be looking for the prisoner?”

“I was summoned, sir.”

“Right. Well.”

Liam thanks the stars profusely for his relative luck. The lift doors open and he steps out on the appropriate level, still trying to cover as much of the lieutenant commander’s view of J4-D3 as he can.

It’s not _quite_ enough.

“What is that droid-”

“Have to be going, sir,” Liam cuts in sharply and doesn’t explain himself further, tearing down the corridor before him as quickly as one can go without breaking into a run.

The docking bay they arrive at is one of many on the space station and not nearly the largest. This one can comfortably fit three or four cargo shuttles with enough space for maintenance and inspection crews to still traverse the floor unimpeded. Liam counts two such starships sitting calmly in the bay, each more than big enough to fit him and the droid. The problem is acquiring one and then successfully flying it off of the Death Star.

The one good thing about setting off the alarms, the rogue Stormtrooper acknowledges as he contemplates how to cross the room, is that most of the security forces for the docking bay have been repurposed as search parties. All that’s left is a handful of stray ‘troopers and a naval officer or two convened near the larger and closer of the two shuttles.

“Follow me,” he whispers harshly. The droid is predictably silent.

He ducks behind a stack of metal crates, peeks out to see if anyone’s spotted him, rolls across the gap to the next stack, and looks out again. J4-D3, lacking the ability to move stealthily, merely wheels over at a consistent pace. Liam hates that he can’t yell frustratedly. They make their way across the docking bay in that fashion, slower than perhaps Liam would like but faster than he anticipated.

The smaller shuttle’s ramp is, by regulation, extended—easy access, perhaps, or a time-saving policy that the obsessively efficient Moffs are implementing to shorten inspections; regardless, it means Liam and the astromech can creep aboard as soon as they get to the ship.

Liam nearly sprints to the cockpit and sits in the captain’s chair. He is then faced with the main flaw in his plan: he doesn’t know how to pilot a starship. It hadn’t been a problem when he first lost his senses and broke the prisoner out because she was a rebel pilot and obviously would be doing the flying, but she’s dead and Liam’s not and he honestly doesn’t know where to even begin to get the ship ready for departure.

“You’re an astromech,” he says nearly pleadingly towards the droid as it rolls into the cockpit behind him. “You can fly this, right?”

If droids had eyes they could roll, Liam’s sure that’s what J4-D3 would have done. Instead, she beeps condescendingly. A small rod extends from one of the droid’s many utility compartments so that she can plug herself into some socket on the ship, which very quickly hums to life around them.

It’s good and bad news, to be honest. The ship might get to take off, but they’ve alerted everyone to their presence. Liam can’t hear much from outside the shuttle, but through the cockpit window he sees the bay’s Stormtroopers and officers running towards the vessel, blasters firing and mouths moving furiously like they’re shouting at him.

Liam grips the nearest lever his right hand can find and hopes it’s somehow related to the hyperdrive controls. “Can you go any faster?”

The droid makes a long beeping rant that Liam barely notices as he winces violently every time someone hits the ship with a well-aimed blaster bolt. The ‘troopers almost make it to the ramp controls before the ship lifts off. The docking pay personnel can only watch angrily as the traitor flies straight out of their reach.

Or maybe they’re more smug than angry. The shuttle barely makes it out of the docking bay entrance before getting shot at by the space station’s many turbolasers. J4-D3 can only do so much to dodge the fire considering she’s a droid inside the cockpit of an unfamiliar cargo vessel instead of in her usual spot on an X-wing fighter with a competent pilot. It only takes one direct hit shaking the ship for Liam to slam down the lever in his hand and pray for the best.

The stars start to bleed before his eyes, stretching across the cockpit window. A tractor beam finally comes online to drag them back to the space station just a second too late. It reaches out for a ship that’s already gone spiraling wildly into lightspeed.

***

“My Lord.”

The officer nearly vibrates with tension as Lord Solus descends from his ship, a dark mass of black robes. He forces his hand to remain still for his perfunctory salute, can’t tell if it fools the Emperor’s Hand because the man’s face is covered by a sleek mask.

“Lieutenant Commander.”

“I’m to escort you to the Grand Moff.”

“Take me to the rebel prisoner.”

“I would, my Lord, but…”

Even without being able to see the other man’s eyes, the officer knows he’s under the force of the harshest glare imaginable.

“But what?” Lord Solus demands.

“She’s dead. After an escape attempt orchestrated by one of our Stormtroopers.”

“Where is the traitor?”

“He got away, my Lord.”

“He…got…away.”

“Yes.”

The lieutenant commander prays very desperately that the Emperor’s Hand doesn’t demand too many details.

“Did no one try to stop his escape?”

“By the time I realized-”

“ _You_ realized?”

The officer gulps. Curses himself. Shrinks his frame as much as he can and tries not to vomit.

“I ran into him on the lift, my Lord, but I-”

A weight crushes at his throat, but there is nothing there for his fingers to pry at when he tries to free himself.

“Find him.”

***

Harry doesn’t hear the heavy mush of footsteps through wet grass until their owner is already right beside him, his hulking figure casting a shadow over Harry’s notes.

“What’re you doing here, boy?”

Harry looks up from his notes with his most charming grin plastered on his face, dimples at maximum effectiveness and green eyes twinkling. His victim, however, looks completely apathetic.

The man is gruff and dirty; what little skin he has on display that isn’t covered in a carpet of hair is red from sun exposure. He has a big nose, squinted eyes, and a scar on the left corner of his upper lip, probably from a kick to the face from an angry nerf. Or, at least, that’s what Harry assumes is the cause, considering he’s looking at an established nerf-herder. He is on trespassing a nerf ranch, after all.

 “I’m researching nerf ranching and the effect it has on the psychology and physiology of the animals-”

“’Scuse me?” the larger man growls.

“It’s for a class at the university-”

“Not on my land.”

Harry thinks about arguing for the split second he has before the man crosses his arms, showing off an impressive muscular physique that Harry definitely doesn’t want to experience firsthand. Instead, the younger man scrambles to shove his notes into his bag and retrace his steps out of the ranch before the herder can sick his temperamental animals on Harry.

The road back to Aldera is long and winds through the mountains. Even though he’s technically on the run from an angry nerf-herder, Harry can still appreciate nature and the spectacular views he can see from his walk. The sunrise that morning had been particularly gorgeous as he’d made his way to the ranch to begin his observations; the view in the afternoon light is different but no less inspiring. Harry’s always had a thing for nature. When he was little he would sneak out of the house before dawn and climb up into the mountains to just breathe in the morning. He feels tethered, somehow, like he can sense each creature waking up and the wind in the leaves and the sunlight on the grass.

His sister Gemma had always rolled her eyes at him when they were kids, tease him whenever he’d wax poetic about the interconnectedness of the universe. Harry could never convince her, still can’t even now. He knows bigger, more sophisticated words, but he still doesn’t have the ability to explain what he feels. Gemma’s domain is more in the technical area, which is why Harry finds it to be a strange coincidence that just as he’s thinking of his sister, he hears the distinct beeping language of a droid. Considering he’s still far outside of any settlement of sentient beings besides the herders, who are generally opposed to droids, there should be no reason for Harry to be hearing Binary.

 He rounds a corner of the mountain face and sees the droid in question along with a man entirely dressed in black. They both look worse for wear: scratches on the droid and cuts and bruises on the man. Harry’s never seen either of them before, and, judging by the way the man is looking around the wilderness with clear confusion, they’ve never seen Alderaan before.

“Are you lost?” Harry calls out to them.

It was a bad move, in hindsight. The man whips around and takes a defensive stance like he thinks Harry is about to attack him. The droid beeps and boops energetically. Harry takes a step back and raises his hands in surrender.

“Woah! No need to fight! I was just trying to help.”

The man lowers his fists and awkwardly shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Sorry. Reflex.”

“It’s all right. Do you need help getting back to the city?”

“…Yes, actually,” he admits rather reluctantly.

“Then you’re in luck—that’s where I’m headed.”

Harry and the man size each other up—or Harry tries to look harmless and the stranger tries to decide if that really is the case. Whether he knows it or not, that is the general truth. Harry wouldn’t hurt a raging manka cat without feeling bad about it for weeks afterward.

The man sighs heavily and moves aside so Harry can take the lead, having decided that his best option at this point is to let the Alderaanian show him the way. He might have made it to the city eventually if he wandered on his own, but he also might have taken a wrong turn and ended up lost in the Triplehorn Mountains for hours.

The man doesn’t say anything as they walk, and Harry can’t think of anything to talk about with him that won’t make the man try to hit him again. He takes the opportunity to study the guy in his peripheral vision. He’s a bit shorter than Harry, has a face streaked with dirt and lined with emotion and stress that seems out of proportion for his age. He can’t be much older than Harry himself, even if his short beard does make him seem more mature. The cut on his forehead is still slowly leaking blood, but the other scrapes on his face and arms seem to be dry. He walks with determined steps and good posture, and is immediately on alert at every sound or flash of an animal darting across the path.

“So…” Harry begins hesitantly after the third thranta flies overhead and nearly spooks the man beside him into launching himself into the trees. “Most people land in Aldera when they get to Alderaan…”

“Yet I’m lost in the mountains,” the stranger finishes for him. “We crashed.”

“Oh. That’s…not good.”

“Yep.”

“Do you need a medcent-”

“Do you know where I can get a ride off the planet?”

Harry chooses not to be offended by the interruption. “Where to? There are several shuttles to Coruscant every-”

“Not a shuttle. I need a ride to the Outer Rim.”

There are a few reasons why one could be looking for transport to the Outer Rim territories, and a lot of them are unsavory. A man and a droid crash landing on Alderaan and immediately trying to get off-world to the far reaches of the galaxy screams criminal activity. Harry thinks about turning them in to the authorities…but, then again, he doesn’t actually know that they’ve done anything wrong. They could be trying to go visit family, or…going on an adventure of some sort. Harry can’t really fault someone for trying to experience the unknown. Goodness knows Harry’s tried to venture off to other planets; he’s just been stopped every time by his well-meaning mother.

“You could try the Spacer Quarter. Offworlders tend to gravitate there. You can probably find someone to take you with them when they leave.”

The silence returns, perhaps even more awkward than before now that Harry is halfway convinced that he’s leading a criminal right into the capital city.


	3. Sorry about the mess.

Liam lets Harry—“I’m Harry, by the way,” the taller man had announced just after the city had finally come into view on the horizon; in return, Liam coughed out his own name reluctantly—lead him into Aldera without much complaint over their casual pace, as he’s mostly just grateful that the other man doesn’t press him about where he’s from or where he’s trying to go. He could tell that Harry was suspicious when he mentioned needing to get to the Outer Rim, but there are no skeptical comments or interrogative questions. Liam isn’t confident in his ability to explain the situation, nor is he sure that he can trust Harry not to turn him in for treason. He’s heard rumors that Alderaan isn’t exactly the most supportive of the Empire after the fall of the Republic; rumors, though, are not enough to support him blabbering on about being a Stormtrooper on the run.

As they walk into the city limits, Liam wishes he had a change of clothes to make him less conspicuous. Shedding his ‘trooper armor was obviously the right decision—his black undershirt and trousers are definitely more normal for a civilian—it’s just that the Alderaanians seem to be much more…regal, is perhaps the word. They wear flowing robes or intricately-pattered tunics, like they all think they’re nobility. Even Harry’s blue and white tunic seems a bit off amongst the city-dwellers, its swirling patters not quite as pronounced as everyone else’s. Harry doesn’t seem bothered, and why should he, but Liam is about two steps away from panicking.

He feels a force bump into his left calf and whirls his head around to find the culprit. Instead of an unsavory character, he just sees J4-D3 rolling along closer to him than she had when they were still up in the mountains. The short series of boops she gives in response to his inquisitive stare feels almost reassuring.

“See that large gray building over there?” Harry points off in the distance. “That’s the spaceport. The Spacer Quarter is right next to it.”

Liam does see the giant building, its reflective, smooth gray surface catching the evening sun. Even if the building itself had been obscured, he probably would have noticed the handful of ships landing and taking off from a particular spot in the distance and could have figured it out himself. As it is, he sense a dismissal in Harry’s directions, an implication that he’s taken Liam as far as he’s going to. The (ex?) Stormtrooper isn’t too keen on that. He needs the taller man to blend them both in to the people around them, someone who isn’t so obviously an off-worlder. He needs someone to deflect attention if they run into anyone who could send Liam back to his superiors in cuffs.

Liam frowns, trying to look particularly pitiful so he can draw the Alderaanian’s sympathies. “You’re just going to leave me here?”

“Um…” Harry scratches at the back of his head awkwardly. “Yeah? I mean basically you just have to go straight. Can’t miss it.”

“I won’t know where to look once I get there.”

Harry looks between Liam, the droid, and the skyline north of their position stopped in the middle of a peaceful square. Although he stares longingly towards what is probably home, Harry eventually relents with a heavy sigh.

He picks himself back up again almost immediately. “All right. We’ll go to The Drunken Thranta. It’s a bit less shady than some of the other spacer cantinas.”

“Less shady” does not mean respectable, as it turns out. While the citizens of Alderaan are all upstanding, wealthy gentlefolk, as far as Liam’s seen anyway, the visiting sentient beings from across the galaxy are not so pristine. The Spacer Quarter looks outwardly like any other part of the city that Harry has led Liam through, but once they get inside the cantina, the shining, well-lit atmosphere of outside is overtaken by the lowlight of the underworld…relatively speaking, anyway. The cantina is still modeled after the rest of the planet’s aesthetic; it’s just also filled with the well-worn clothing, smoky fog, and alcohol-induced banter of people used to long stretches of time away from civilized society and its conventions.

“What’s the best approach?” Liam turns to look at Harry.

The other man appears to have not heard the question. Instead, he’s too busy eyeing up a man at the bar with a shock of white blond hair and a cheeky grin as he stares back. Liam can only take so much of it before he harshly elbows his companion in the side to break his besotted concentration.

“What?” Harry snaps, none too pleased.

“The best approach,” the shorter man repeats.

“Just tell them where you want to go and offer them loads of credits. I’ll be over _there_ if you need something.” Harry strides towards the man he’s clearly looking to chat up. He pauses for a moment about halfway to his destination and levels Liam with a serious glare. “Something _important_.”

Liam rolls his eyes and waves the man off to go woo his blond.

“Okay. Jay, you’re with-”

Liam glances down to see that the droid has deserted him as well. He spots her not too far away, exchanging whirring beeps with some other astromech. He would be concerned about the droid giving them away, but he figures J4-D3 has more at stake in the mission than he does, considering her recently-deceased master and all that.

He surveys the cantina patrons warily, looking for the least obviously harmful of the bunch. The menacing Weequays he immediately ignores, along with the toothy grins of a pair of Trandoshans and the frankly unsettlingly blank gaze of a large Ithorian. He’s not a speciest, honestly; it’s just that he hasn’t had much contact with sentients that aren’t near-Humans for a long time. Coruscant was—and likely still is—full of them, but the Imperial Academies were far less so. He can’t speak anything other than Basic and a few boring-but-useful phrases in Bocce. Unfortunately there aren’t many Humans hanging about the cantina that aren’t scarred beyond recognition or in the middle of heated discussions that Liam doesn’t dare break up.

The safest bet seems to be a brooding, pinkish-colored Twi’lek woman tucked into a corner booth with a glass of a very dark liquid. It looks like sludge, but who is Liam to pass judgement? He’s never been one to experiment at cantinas, usually going for a standard Corellian rum.

The Twi’lek eyes him apathetically as he approaches, slouched in her seat with two blaster pistols clearly visible. She doesn’t reach for either, so that must be a good sign.

“Are you a pilot?” Liam asks hesitantly, stood at the end of her table.

He can’t figure out what to do with his hands, feels awkwardly immobile with his arms by his side but doesn’t want to make any unintentionally inappropriate gestures. There’s not a lot of cultural sensitivity training in the Imperial Academies. For all Liam knows, he could harmlessly wave his hand in the air and be cursing someone’s mother in a different species’ language.

“Yes,” the woman replies blankly.

“Can I sit?”

The Twi’lek shrugs—her whole body seems to move with the gesture, her head-tails included. Liam tries not to stare. He sits down across from her, making sure to keep his hands in sight so he isn’t seen as a threat.

“I was hoping to procure a ride to the Outer Rim,” he explains.

Liam tries to make himself sound perhaps more upstanding and legitimate than he really is, although that makes little sense considering his present company. No doubt the patrons of this cantina would take him more seriously if he acted like them and not like an imitation of a naval officer.

The woman rolls her eyes and knocks back the rest of her drink. “The Outer Rim’s a big place. Be more specific.”

“Yavin 4.”

He expects her to wave him off, yell at him, maybe even nonchalantly agree to transport him. He doesn’t expect her to laugh in his face. Liam can feel his cheeks burning in humiliation and confusion.

“You couldn’t pay me enough credits,” the Twi’lek informs him once she’s calmed down from her mirth enough to speak. “There’s nothing out there to make it worth it. Just empty space.”

Liam dismisses himself, irritation beginning to thrum underneath his skin. He hadn’t thought this would be easy, of course, but it looks like he’s in for an exercise in futility.

Next he decides to try an emerald-colored Rodian, who responds to his carefully casual greeting with a long string of what might be Huttese. Liam promptly backs away from that potential conflict. The third spacer he approaches is a Devaronian, missing one of his horns but nonetheless looking threatening.

“What’re you looking for in the Gordian Reach?” the other male questions, something darkly curious in his tone, once Liam’s gotten around to his inquiry.

Liam doesn’t think it would be wise to reveal the location of the Rebel Alliance base, not even to someone who’s probably run more illegal operations in a year than Liam can imagine for a lifetime.

Thus he shoots back with “None of your business,” and is promptly sent on his way with a sneer.

“The Yavin system, ay?”

Liam turns to the grimy booth beside the Devaronian, where the first thing he focuses on is a pair of brown boots kicked up onto the table. Reclined in his seat like he were the Emperor himself is a Human male who’s entire appearance can be summed up as “scruffy.” His brown hair sticks out haphazardly in most directions and his light beard looks like the product of laziness more so than any concerted effort to grow such facial hair. His eyes are sharp, though, as he clearly evaluates Liam the way Liam has been doing to him.

Or at least he seemed sharp until he tried to swing his feet of the table and nearly sent his whole body tipsily to the floor. The man was clearly drunk, but Liam took that as an advantage rather than a problem and sat down anyway.

Almost as soon as his bum is in the seat, the other man points in the general direction of the bar while sending Liam a lewd smirk. “I sent my sidekick to get me another Bantha blaster, but it looks like he’s testing out the ol’ hyperdrive instead, if you know what I mean.”

Liam really has no clue what he was supposed to be understanding. A quick look over at the bar reveals nothing of use, although he does see Harry and his blond leaning their heads together a bit too closely for polite society. “No. I don’t.”

“That makes two of us. Hey, did you want something?”

Liam blinks for a moment. The conversation hasn’t been going on long at all and he’s already confused by this man. Does he have a memory issue? Is he really _that_ drunk? If he is, can he really be trusted to uphold a deal and pilot a ship? Unfortunately, this is by far Liam’s best lead, so he can’t be too picky.

“If you have a ship, I will pay you ten thousand credits to transport me and my droid to Yavin 4,” Liam bargains with nonexistent money. He can only pray that the Rebels will agree to pay the debt for him in return for J4-D3.

“Twenty.”

“No way. Eleven.”

“Twenty-five.”

Liam bristles. “What the hell are you on about? That’s not how you bargain.”

The other man grins, clearly challenging Liam.  The ex-Trooper has half a mind to take him up on it, maybe swing a fist at him to let out some of the tension he’s been feeling since he made that stupid decision on the Death Star. He can’t take that back, but he might be able to beat this man a bit to make himself feel better.

Just before Liam decides to lash out, a red blaster bolt shoots over his shoulder and narrowly misses his conversational partner’s head, instead slamming into the wall behind their table and sending a few chunks of debris flying away from the site.

“Fuck!” the man opposite Liam exclaims, throwing himself to the ground for cover and pulling out a blaster pistol to start firing back.

Liam gets on the ground, too, dazed. He’s no stranger to combat, but he wasn’t prepared for it here. Crouched under the table, Liam peers across the bar, through the mass of people screeching and swearing and ducking out of fire, to make out a figure armed with a blaster rifle and clad in dark armor. They appear to be trading shots with the man at Liam’s side, neither actually hitting their targets. A second armored man comes into view, alternating fire between Liam’s direction and somewhere near the bar, where Liam can see blaster fire emerging from someone who must be covering themselves there. He spares a thought for Harry, who has probably never seen blaster fire in his life, and hopes the man made it out of the cantina in one piece.

“Who are these people?” Liam asks over the fighting, as it’s blatantly obvious that they have a specific target.

He gets an answer, “The Wanted!”, but it doesn’t explain much.

“Who?”

“They’re a half-rate group of wannabe Mandalorian bounty hunters who couldn’t even successfully hunt their own asses if someone put a million credits on them!”

The other man must have sobered up after his near-death experience, or else he’s a remarkably eloquent drunk.

“Well they managed to find _you_ ,” Liam can’t help but snark back.

“Beginners’ luck!”

The scruffy man does an impressive roll out of cover to another table closer to the hunters, grabbing a second blaster from his belt and firing off shots more rapidly. Liam chooses not to join him for his own safety.

“Niall!”

A blond head pops into view around the side of the bar, glaring at the pilot.

“Concentrating, Louis!”

“You’re a piss poor shot, Nialler. Out the door on three,” _Louis_ orders.

“I’ve got cargo.”

“On five, then!”

Niall rolls his eyes but seems to accept the plan, moving back out of sight.

“Take this and cover them!” Louis shouts over his shoulder, tossing his offhand blaster at Liam before Liam even acknowledges that he’s been spoken to. “One…Two…Five!”

Instinct kicks in. Liam adjusts his position so that he has a clear sight of his targets, aims, and fires off five blaster bolts without really thinking about it. He hits the rifle of the first hunter who’d come in and the helmet and hip of the second, all the while distantly making note of the sound of footsteps hurriedly scampering away from the scene. Louis lands a clean shot to the original’s chest. It’s suddenly quiet for a moment, eerily so as the dust settles.

Louis breaks the silence quickly. “Damn! Remind me not to cross you.”

Liam awkwardly fumbles with his blaster at the compliment. “Er… Thanks.”

“Right. Let’s get going before the rest of them get here.”

Louis stands and brushes off the dirt from the seat of his trousers before he extends a hand to help Liam to his feet. Liam accepts and tries to give the shorter man his pistol back, but Louis won’t take it.

“Keep it. You’ll probably need it. This your droid?”

Liam follows Louis’ pointed finger to a familiar hunk of metal rolling calmly towards them like nothing had just happened.

“Yes,” Liam nearly grinds his teeth in annoyance. “That’s her.”

“All right. C’mon.”

Louis grabs Liam by his shirt sleeve and literally drags him towards the smaller side entrance to the building. After a fast check to see if the coast is clear, they exit the cantina and nearly run straight into Niall and—Harry. Well, at least he’s not dead, is all Liam can manage to think about the matter. The curly-haired man seems a bit frazzled, clinging to the blond’s hand like he might faint if left on his own. Liam wants to say that they should send Harry on his way, back home, but he’s not too sure the man will be able to make it if there really are more of these bounty hunters roaming about.

“We need to get to the Spaceport before they can regroup,” Niall tells Louis even though it’s clear that Louis already knows this.

Louis looks to his left, then his right, then his left again. “I don’t think anyone will be needing these speeders.”

He heads towards the line of speeders and speeder bikes parked outside the cantina and abandoned in their owners’ haste to get away from the scuffle.

“We can’t leave J4-D3 behind,” Liam insists as he watches Louis eye the smaller, faster speeder bikes.

“Oh, all right. Hoist her onto one of these things and let’s go.”

Liam picks the speeder of the most appropriate size and waits for both the droid and Louis to get to him. Together, the two men haul the droid onto the back of the speeder. It’s not secure at all and she’s liable to go flying off the back or the sides, but they are in a rush and there’s only so much they can do without a crane arm to lift her into a proper droid space on a vehicle. Louis clambers into the front seat and Liam vaults himself into the back so he can keep a hand on Jay and at least pretend like he can keep her steady. Niall ushers Harry onto one of the bikes and climbs on in front of him. He has to pull Harry’s arms around his waist to make the taller pay attention and hold on. With all of them mostly settled, Louis gives the signal and they take off through the alleyways towards the Spaceport.

Harry knows it’s not exactly the right time to be admiring how perfectly Niall fits in his arms, but with the wind whipping through his hair as they zoom through the city, it’s just so easy to rest his forehead on the top of Niall’s head and tighten his arms around the blond’s waist and enjoy the moment as if they’re not on the run from some crazy people. He can imagine his mother’s fond exasperation when he inevitably tells her this story later. She’ll probably chide him for getting caught up with ruffians but nonetheless want to meet Niall if her son is so taken with the man. Harry had meant to just convince the blond to join him for a mutually satisfying romp in the sheets, but he can’t say he’s too upset about the prospect of going on a short adventure through space with him. The excitement of exploration will certainly liven up the bedroom if they do make it back to one.

The security officers at the Spaceport entrance shout at them when they fly by, but neither Louis nor Niall stop their speeders. They zip around spacers and cargo, narrowly avoid bowling over an irate group of Wookiees as they take a sharp right. Harry shouts an apology to them, but he’s not sure they catch it.

He’s not prepared for the sudden, jolting stop as they arrive in the proper docking bay. He’s almost flung from the bike, Niall pulled along with him, but he manages to steady himself at the last second.

“You okay back there?” Niall chuckles at the snail’s pace at which Harry peels himself from the blond’s back.

“Never better.”

“You two can flirt later,” Louis glares. “Get on the ship.”

Harry pauses to take in the sight of said ship. It looks very run down, in his opinion, although he can’t say he’s up-to-date on starship maintenance. The ship is mostly a circular disk, with two protrusions on the front and a cockpit on the side. It’s clearly meant to be a light gray but there’s some wear and tear that looks dirty brown in some places. Harry doesn’t say any of his observances aloud, quite aware of how tetchy spacers can be about their ships.

Niall has extended the ramp up into the ship and motions for Harry to follow him inside, which Harry does after a cursory check that Louis and Liam don’t need help getting Liam’s droid down—they appear to be struggling with the weight and lack of proper grip, but managing.

“Welcome to the _Doncaster_ ,” Niall says once Harry’s onboard, making a sweeping gesture with his arms.

The entry ramp opens to a curved corridor. Niall leads Harry past a side corridor which probably leads to the cockpit and into a large open room, complete with a curved sofa and a round table. It’s a little dark and Harry would be afraid to touch most of the walls—as quite a few of them look like they have exposed circuits and ports which would probably malfunction if someone accidentally put too much pressure on them—but it’s clean and the sofa is rather comfortable when Harry sits down on it.

They hear shouting from the ship entrance as Louis, Liam, and the droid make their way up. Harry can make out several swears from Louis and demands from Liam that his droid speed up. He doesn’t realize that there’s anything actively wrong at first.

“Niall!” Louis screeches. “Get your ass up here! Their ships are right fucking there!”

Niall throws Harry an apologetic smile and jogs off towards the cockpit, brushing shoulders with Liam as he does. Liam’s astromech rolls into the room first and plugs into one of the ship’s exposed sockets, which Harry thinks Louis might have a complaint about if he were there to see it.

The ship tilts to one side for a terrifying moment. Harry grips the edge of the sofa and holds himself steady, grunts when Liam stumbles and falls on his lap.

The ship tilts the other direction far less severely, and then there is the sensation that Harry can only describe as ‘up’. It doesn’t feel quite like he thought flying would; in fact, he feels a little nauseous.

Despite the rolling feeling of sickness, Harry picks himself up—after Liam gets off his lap—and makes his way to the cockpit. Louis and Niall are seated in the two piloting chairs; Louis is steering and Niall is flicking a few switches off to the side, his fingers flying faster than Harry can really process. Out the window, he can see the edge of Alderaan’s atmosphere, where the planet seemingly ends and _space_ begins. The stars look brighter than he’s ever pictured.

It’s a bit ruined by the reddish-orange light of ship cannon fire shooting past on their peripherals.

“This was clearly meant to be an ambush,” Louis grumbles. “Fuck The Wanted and fuck their shitty plans. You two!” He turns to narrow his eyes at Harry and Liam, who give him their best innocent “Who, me?” looks in return. “Man the guns.”

“What?” Harry gapes at him.

“Man the guns.”

Louis turns back around to try to dodge the fire. Niall doesn’t offer an alternative, so Liam and Harry are left to trek to the gun well—not hard to find as it’s directly across the main corridor from the cockpit entrance. Liam immediately begins to climb the ladder to the gun at the top of the ship, so Harry has no choice but to step carefully down into the lower gun compartment. It’s a very small space with only a seat with the appropriate targeting and firing mechanisms attached to it. Harry sits down warily.

“Just aim and fire!” Louis shouts from his captain’s chair.

Harry spares a wandering thought for how well sound travels in the ship and how it would be impossible to have sex in one of the bunks without everyone hearing, but then is promptly reminded of the situation when the seat he’s in jerkily spins at his very slight touch and he sees a laser beam dart by his face.

He presses the cannon trigger rapidly but none of his shots hit anything. That’s probably because he doesn’t actually see any of their pursuers until he moves his seat again to get a different angle. Once he’s done that, he can make out at least three small, flat fighter ships swerving and darting after them. The laser fire headed their way is presumably Liam’s doing, though while he’s doubtless a better shot than Harry, he still can’t seem to hit any of them.

Louis appears to be flying the ship in circles, because they never seem to get very far from Alderaan before they’re back beside it again. Harry can’t even begin to guess what the man’s plan is, if he even has one. All Harry can do is shoot wildly behind them and hope it makes contact with something important on the enemy ships.

He actually does it. Harry watches as a bolt strikes one of the ships in the wing, blowing it straight off. He whoops victoriously.

“One down!” He cries proudly throughout the ship.

“Great,” Louis deadpans, clearly unimpressed. “Don’t get cocky. Shoot the other two.”

“Why aren’t you jumping to lightspeed?” Liam calls.

“We’re working on it,” Niall reassures him. “Just a second.”

“I told you not to leave repairs unfinished before a cantina run.”

“Fly the damn ship, Louis.”

Harry and Liam keep shooting for several more moments.

“What the-”

Liam cuts off his own confused exclamation. Harry can’t feel his hands.

From off in the distance, a green beam of light extends from seemingly nothing, cutting across the backdrop of stars and striking through to the heart of Alderaan. A light seems to erupt from the very core of the planet, spreading outward and engulfing the whole thing. The light grows, coming after the _Doncaster_ and the bounty hunters’ ships, trying to cover them in the same destruction.

As the stars stretch into hyperspace, Harry feels the echoes of a million voices crying out in terror, cut short, and he is numb.


End file.
